Google faces massive Russian lawsuit

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 7 Nov 2008 at 08:26

Google faces a £1.5 billion lawsuit in Russia over claims that it infringed search technology patents, according to reports.

Era Vodoleya, a Russian search company that competes with Google, claims that it holds an old patent on contextual advertising in Russia, according to the technology blog Profy.

It claims to have intellectual property dating back to 1998 - one year before Google began offering its services in the country - and intends to take the matter to court to claim a portion of the company's profit from the past ten years.

Era Vodoleya, which translates as The Age of Aquarius, has been investigating the matter for some five years, and has decided to target Google alone, leaving other Russian search engines using the technology alone.

This is far from the first time the search giant has been the subject of allegations over copyright infringement.

Earlier this year LimitNone filed a complaint alledging that the company copied code from a tool that migrated contact data from Microsoft Outlook to GMail. The firm has also been sued in the past over the VoIP technology that underpins Google Talk.

Due to the increasing number of patent lawsuits filed in recent years, Google and several other large technology companies including Cisco and HP grouped together to form the Allied Security Trust. This organisation buys up key intellectual property to prevent smaller companies filing legal complaints.

Google was recently prevented from purchasing a Russian startup firm by the country's anti-monopoly service. Begun, an online advertising company, was reportedly in talks with Google over a potential £70 million takeover.

Google was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.